THE court battle to determine the validity of the process which ousted Port Antonio mayor Alston Hunter and installed Councillor Benny White to that office, had another setback in the Supreme Court yesterday, after lawyers representing the JLP objected a videotape of the meeting which was tendered into evidence.

According to White, the proceedings of the mid-July meeting, where he was installed as mayor, were videotaped at the request of the council, but lawyers representing the JLP yesterday objected to admitting the tape as evidence, on the grounds that it could have been doctored.

“.The person who videotaped the proceedings must now come to court,” White told the Observer yesterday.

White said the proceedings were adjourned and counsel will now have to seek a date next week for an early 2005 hearing.

But, clearly frustrated at what he called “efforts to drag the case on and on”, White told the Observer that “the business of council is almost at a standstill as there is no JLP majority in the council, and the PNP majority, with me as mayor, is being denied the right to get the peoples’ business going”.

He said one of his disappointments is that each time the case is heard, it is heard by a different judge, and lawyers for the JLP keep making excuses.

White said that when the matter last came before the court earlier this month, the case was adjourned to allow the JLP’s lawyer, Arthur Williams, who was attending a meeting of the Senate, to be present at yesterday’s hearing.

However, he said the court was told that Williams was off the island, and a “stand-in” lawyer was sent to replace him.

“It is clear that delaying tactics are being used to drag out the process in the courts. But I can tell you that it is not going to continue much longer, because the business of the people is being hijacked and the court keeps adding to that, time after time,” White said yesterday.

The Portland Parish Council, one of 13 with Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) majorities, was plunged into turmoil in July when White, the councillor of the Manchioneal Division, sided with four People’s National Party (PNP) councillors and removed Hunter, following a vote of no confidence.

White was subsequently elected mayor and the PNP’s Dexter Roland as his deputy.

But Hunter later gained a court injunction against the vote, arguing that the council had not been properly convened.

virtuee@jamaicaobserver.com